Moms, Dogs, and Cheesecake

I took dinner to my mom yesterday - pot roast done in the slow-cooker, fresh asparagus, biscuits, and home-made cheese cake with fresh blueberries on top. In fact, I got started out of the house almost an hour later than I intended, because I'd made a double-recipe cheesecake (dratted Keebler with their bigger graham cracker crumb crust - a single recipe only filled the shell halfway) and it was taking forever to cook all the way through the middle. Once it was finally ready, I spooned on the sour cream/sugar/vanilla topping, popped it back into the oven for 10 minutes, then went and got everything else loaded up into the car - including a bud vase with Narcissi I'd cut from my garden:



Took the cheesecake out of the oven, waited 15 minutes for it to cool a little, then put the plastic lid onto the pan, put the pan in a cardboard box with a hinged lid, and put that in the car. Then I got a panel from an old wire dog crate, and slid that down between the back of the driver/passenger bucket seats and the folded-down back seat, to form a barrier to prevent the dog who was going to be sitting in the passenger seat (my goofy AB boy) from getting into the back of the car and messing with stuff. Loaded my big boy into the front seat, and hit the road.

I had to make a very quick stop on the way, to pick up the asparagus at a roadside stand I knew would be open. I swear, I wasn't out of the car TWO MINUTES, and that darn dog had squeezed himself over the top of the crate panel into the back of the car, had pawed/nosed the lid to the cardboard box open, managed to get the plastic lid off the cheesecake (folding the pan in the process, flipping one side of the cheesecake over onto the other) and was thisclose to getting his tongue onto the cheesecake itself. I was able to get to him before he did, but my poor beautiful cheesecake looked like a graham cracker crumb omelet. When I got to my mom's I flipped it back open and stuck it in the fridge to chill. It wasn't pretty, but it tasted good when we had it for dessert later.

We had a nice long visit, and before I left I split the leftovers, leaving my mom half of everything. Including cheesecake. I covered the pan with my share of the cheesecake with foil, put it in the box with the hinged cover (along with a few other things), put that and the slow-cooker in the back of the car, my dog into the front passenger seat, and headed for home. I had to stop at the gas station to pick up milk on my way home. Do you know that darn dog got into the back of the car and had gotten the box open by the time I got back into the car? He was going for the cheesecake again!

Next time I'm carrying food in the back of my car, I'm taking a different dog along for the ride! The big girl doesn't touch groceries, and is trustworthy when left in an unbarrier-ed car!